Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock. – Henry Ward Beecher, Star Papers: A Discourse of Flowers

Against a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange about them, at once vivid and secret, like flowers traced in fire in the phantasmal garden of a witch. – G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions, “The Glory of Grey”